skies like a sea inside out
by patientalien
Summary: A year before he gazes into the abyss of the Dark Side, Anakin Skywalker goes on a journey into the bowels of a planet in order to find a lost Clone company, dragging Obi-Wan Kenobi along for the ride. Once there, they encounter dangers neither of them are ready to face and their mission becomes a race for survival that tests them physically and emotionally.
1. Chapter 1

The abyss gaped up at them, a yawning chasm in the fire-blasted terrain. Standing on the edge, white-armored troopers were dwarfed by the very scale of the hole.

"We could go around it," suggested one, looking back to see if their General was within earshot.

"Why didn't we see this on the air recon?" asked another, shouldering his rifle. The men shifted uneasily; the pit was unexpected, and while the Clones of the 501st were the best of the best, bred for battle and trained to overcome adversity, there was something about this particular adversity that triggered their in-bred danger reflex.

"Well." The men snapped to attention as their young General approached the lip of the chasm. "That explains a lot."

"Explains what, Sir?" the Clone Captain, Rex, asked, joining Anakin Skywalker on the edge. The air from the pit smelled ancient, cool and clean.

General Skywalker tapped his datapad. "These readings," he explained. "The Sep base isn't in front of us. It's beneath us." He pointed downwards. "You ready for some spelunking, Captain?"

Rex pulled his grappling line from his belt. "Always, Sir," he replied.

"We won't be able to bring down the heavy artillery," Skywalker said thoughtfully, peering into the abyss. "I can't get a read on how far the base is from here, so we'll need to at least bring a few days' supplies. I don't want to bring the whole legion either," he added, "in case this is a trap." He laid a hand on Rex's shoulder plate. "Pick your best ten men, and get with the quartermaster to re-allocate our supplies and rations. Tell the rest to set out around this thing and keep to the original plan."

Rex nodded. "And you, Sir?" He already knew the answer. Skywalker would be going with them into the pit, fueled by a sense of adventure and duty to his men. It was what made them follow him so enthusiastically; he never asked them to do something he wouldn't do himself, always led the charge, lightsaber blazing.

"What do you think, Rex?" Skywalker asked with a wry expression. "Go get ready. I want to be down there within the hour."

Rex nodded again, and turned to prepare his troops. This was no different than any other engagement, really. No different than any of the other strange and unexpected circumstances that tended to crop up on the fields of battle. They would all do their duty. They were born for it, bred for it. They would follow orders until their last breaths. But that day would not, Rex hoped, be today.

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"Change of plan." Ahsoka Tano jerked her head up at the sound of her Master's voice. He looked almost excited, which made her distinctly nervous. Any time Anakin had a plan, it inevitably involved something ridiculously risky.

"Okay..." She wasn't sure what else to say, honestly.

Anakin pointed towards the gaping maw that definitely hadn't been there when they'd done their air recon. "Me, Rex, and a few troops are going to go that way," he informed her. "I think the base is below-ground. But, in case I'm wrong, or this is a trap or something, you're going to take the rest of the 501st around like we originally planned." It seemed to make sense, but Ahsoka felt an uncomfortable prickling in her montrals that she'd learned to associate with a Bad Idea.

She stood, dusting off her leggings. "Are you sure?" she asked. Most Padawans, she knew, would defer to their Masters in all things. But she'd learned that sometimes certain Masters required a little special handling. "What if the base is down there and you need more than a handful of men? What if it iis/i a trap?"

"If the base is down there, I'll comm you and have you provide backup support," Anakin replied, blithly. "And if it's a trap, well... There hasn't been a Separatist trap yet I haven't been able to get out of." He grinned at her, disarmingly.

She resisted the urge to sigh. This was typical of her Master, of how he operated. So sure of himself, and his men, and of her, that there wasn't even a chance of failure. He was right, though - there hadn't been a Separatist trap they (they - she reminded herself) hadn't been able to escape. "Let me come with you, Master," she implored, already knowing the answer.

Sure enough, Anakin shook his head. "No, Snips," he said decisively. "I need to trust the men up here are taken care of." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Ahsoka. We've done this before, you know."

He was so casually confident, so sure of himself. She knew she was making a mistake underestimating him, but she couldn't help icy worry from rising in her gut. "Okay, Master," she said, finally. She still didn't like it, but she supposed, as a Padawan, she didn't have to like it. "Just... be careful."

Anakin flashed her a grin. "I'm always careful," he informed her. "Go get ready. You're leaving soon."

She nodded, resisting the urge to grab his hand in farewell before she trotted away towards the rest of the battallion.

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Headlamps and lightsaber blazing, Anakin and his small squad descended into the pit on rappel lines, 50 pounds of supplies on their backs and blind darkness below them. The mouth of the pit grew smaller and smaller, and Anakin took one last, desperate, look at the sun before it winked out of existence. The men were silent, the only sounds the hum of Anakin's 'saber, the rustling of armor against rock, their breathing. It was as close to silent as Anakin supposed he'd experienced in ages, and it was wholly disconcerting.

Finally, his boots hit firm ground. The shaft opened into a tunnel to his left; it didn't look man or machine-made, a natural path through the rock. He didn't know what had created it, and he didn't much care. What he cared about was finding the Separatist base and getting back up to the surface. Already he could feel a prickly sense of claustrophobia settling over him. It was odd - he spent a good deal of time in the cockpit of a starfighter, not the roomiest accomodations by any stretch of the imagination. But somehow, that was different. Somehow, being able to see a wash of stars outside the canopy made the cramped quarters more manageable. This was... he looked overhead, and saw nothing but more rock.

He turned his attention to his datapad, frowning as the device struggled to find a signal. Luckily, he'd saved the last report to the harddrive, so it was mostly a matter of following that to the base. He was worried, though; if the datapad couldn't transmit, what that meant for their comms. He decided not to think about it for the time being - he doubted they'd need them in that capacity, anyway.

The path sloped downward at a gentle pace; it was an easy walk, even with the extra gear. The rocks beneath their feet were smooth, worn down over time to something resembling a sidewalk. Here and there were evidence of the Seperatists: an abandoned, powered-down battle 'droid, a gauge in the rock wall where heavy equipment had been brought through. Still, it was quiet. Even the catacombs under Geonosis hadn't been this quiet, hadn't been so desolate. There had been life there (well, as lively as undead Geonosians could be, anyway), the sounds of activity and other beings. This was... nothingness. Even straining his senses, Anakin couldn't hear anything besides his men and himself. The 'droid army was not known to be quiet, and he expected to hear evidence of them by now.

"Where are we going, Sir?" Rex asked, coming up beside him, his head lamps cutting through the pitch dark.

Anakin shrugged. "As far as I can tell, if we just keep following this path, we'll reach the base in a few hours." He kept the 'I hope' part to himself.

"And what if the path forks?" Rex asked as they came upon a divergence in the trail. He sounded a little smug, Anakin thought wryly.

He cast out the Force, trying to sense down the tunnels, trying to determine where to go. What had he learned from Obi-Wan? What was the secret to a maze? The datapad was of no help, only showed where the base was, not how to get there, through underground tunnels. Anakin closed his eyes, dredging up old memories of his training. 'Pick a direction, and stick with it.' That's what Obi-Wan had said. And Anakin was from Tatooine, superstitious to a fault. The right hand was evil, he knew from his childhood. At the memory his mechanical right hand tightened into a fist, as if in agreement. "Left," he said after a moment. "We'll go left."

He hoped half-memories and folklore were good enough.

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Ahsoka let out a frustrated puff of air. Once around the maw her Master had disappeared into, the terrain was flat, even, easy. And there was no sign of the Separatist base, all the way to the horizon. Which meant Anakin had probably been right. Which meant she wanted nothing more than to be down there with him.

The sun was sinking down below the - completely empty - horizon, and Ahsoka brought her troops to a halt. She would have expected to hear from Anakin by now, whether because he needed backup or because the base had already been destroyed and he was on his way to meet her. But she hadn't heard a thing, and didn't want to get too far ahead of him. Besides, with darkness falling, the men would need to rest. She needed to rest.

"Set up camp here," she directed Sergeant Appo, gesturing around them. Appo was a good man, still kind of shiny, but he followed orders to a fault, and was generally fairly affable. He wasn't Rex, though, Ahsoka thought. She knew such thoughts were not very Jedi-like, but she had been told from a young age to allow herself to have thoughts and emotions - just to let them go once she'd felt them, and not let them get the better of her. She found it easy enough; she didn't dwell on her hurts and disappointments over the current mission. Instead, she felt those emotions, and let them go. She did find herself having to do that several times an hour, but she was still technically following her Jedi teachings. Jedi teachings, not her Master's, she differentiated.

Clearing an area to make a campfire, Ahsoka considered the difference. She'd never been so proud as the day she was named as Anakin Skywalker's Padawan, and in the time they'd been together, she knew she had grown and thrived; she could command troops with ease, now. She led battles and wrote mission reports and her opinions on tactics and logistics were taken seriously. She was able to hotwire an enemy ship, could turn the tide of battle to her favor almost on a whim. She'd watched him, carefully, trying to absorb even a fraction of his natural talent, his effortless, commanding presence. She was at her best on the battlefield, like he was, because of him.

But battle, she knew, was only part of being a Jedi, and she had realized with some annoyance not very long ago, that other aspects of her development were being neglected. She couldn't meditate with any consistency, was ill-suited to quiet contemplation. She tended towards impatience and while she did spend time with the Youngling clans when they were on Coruscant, her tolerance for it was limited. These things, she knew, were also her Master's legacy, his unintentional teachings. He was brilliant, but his gifts did not extend everywhere, and where they did not, so too did Ahsoka's training suffer.

She wasn't sure what to do about it. Going to the Council was out of the question; she had no desire to get Anakin in trouble, because as far as she saw it, it wasn't really his fault. He didn't have time to teach her the traditional Jedi ways, because the war had him overextended already. It was a wonder, she often thought, that he had time to breathe with all of the missions and duties he had on his shoulders. She already knew he did not often sleep, and she didn't want the Council to decree that he needed to exert yet more effort on her behalf.

She did her best to supplement, and in the end, she knew that it wasn't something she would be able to fix, not until the war was over. When the war was over, things would change, and her training would take on the traditional trappings once again. Well, as traditional as having Anakin Skywalker as her Master could be.

She ignited a pile of dry grass in the middle of the fire pit she had created, and sat, cross-legged, beside the flames. She watched the fire dance and sputter and grow and let her mind wander, reaching out with the Force to sense her Master. He was there, in their bond, but he seemed so far away. She couldn't get a good grasp of his emotions; it was so much easier when they were closer together, or didn't have however-many feet of rock between them.

She drew her legs up to her chest and leaned forward, resting her chin on her knees. She closed her eyes, and before she even realized it, she was asleep.

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The Clones were able to tell what time it was using their helmet-mounted heads' up displays. Anakin had only the Force to tell him they'd been walking for almost ten hours. Though the path was easy, Anakin still found himself beginning to drag with fatigue, the darkness telling his internal clock that it was time to sleep. He reached out with the Force, trying to determine if they were drawing closer to their destination, but 'droids did not have Force signatures to latch onto, and the silence was absolute.

Suddenly, the path ended and in its place a wall, with a slot at shoulder-height, just big enough for Anakin to squeeze through on his stomach. He considered; they could stop here for the night (if it even was truly night) and tackle the slot upon waking, or they could forge ahead. He shoved his arm through the slot, using his lightsaber to illuminate what was beyond. He couldn't tell, but he could see that the slot got bigger somewhere within the glow of his 'saber.

There was no way the 'droid army could have gotten through, he realized. His instincts had failed him; they'd been going the wrong way. Now he had a decision to make: go back the way they'd come, and add an additional ten hours to their timeline, or forge ahead and hope that there was more than one path to the base. The Force whispered in the back of his mind: 'Go forward,' it said.

"I'm going to see what's past this," he informed Rex. "Once I figure it out, I'll give the signal." He forced himself to sound confident, though he knew the Clone Captain knew they'd made a mistake. The thought niggled at him; he wasn't exactly known for making such major tactical errors. He was glad for the darkness so his flushed embarrassment wasn't completely obvious.

He dropped his pack onto the ground, leaning back, rolling his shoulders. Fifty pounds wasn't a lot for him, but after ten hours, his shoulders, back, and neck were aching. Once he felt like he could move properly again, he drew himself into the slot, arms over his head. He pushed himself along by his fingertips and toes, wincing as jutting rocks occassionally snagged on his skin and tore at his clothes. He didn't ignite his lightsaber; there was no room for it and him at the moment, and he didn't want to accidentally bring the tunnel down on himself.

Anakin Skywalker was not afraid of the dark. He wasn't afraid of what he couldn't see, wasn't scared of monsters or enclosed spaces. But in the tunnel, unable to move in any direction but forward, not knowing what was in front of him, he could admit to a certain discomfort.

The silence was making his ears play tricks on him; he thought he heard rock shifting on rock, or someone screaming. He shook it off, forged ahead. Three hundred yards in, the tunnel expanded - he could feel the pressure ease, and he ignited his lightsaber.

The cavern the tunnel led into was nothing he'd ever seen before. Rock formations that looked like trees rose up from the ground, and pink transluscent stone flowed like honey down the walls. He blinked, looked around, his 'saber's blue glow casting shadows on the walls. And then he saw it - a feeder tunnel to the side, expanded and reinforced with metal struts. He felt vindicated - he'd been right, after all.

He started the slow crawl back through the tunnel, this time using his 'saber and the Force to expand the tunnel's dimensions enough for the clones in their armor to get through. When he emerged back where he'd started, he was confused to find himself entangled in charge wires. "What are you doing?" he asked Rex, pulling an explosive out of a crack in the wall next to the slot. He wondered, suddenly, if his troops had been planning on trapping him in the tunnel, then pushed the thought aside; it made no sense, he was just overtired.

"Sir!" Rex exclaimed, at his side in an instant. "Are you alright?"

Anakin looked himself over. Besides a pair of skinned knees and a couple of other minor scrapes, he was unscathed. "Fine - Rex, what's going on?"

Rex shifted slightly in what Anakin could sense was discomfort. "We heard you calling for help," he replied.

Anakin frowned. "I was only gone ten minutes!" Besides, calling for help wasn't his thing - surely Rex knew that! He thought about the screams he himself had heard, and disregarded, wondering suddenly if perhaps they were not as alone as he'd originally assumed. He banished the thought, and pointed to the tunnel. "It should be wide enough for you guys to go through easily now," he said. "The base is that way."

"Are you sure, Sir?" Rex wasn't being critical, he was just... being cautious, which Anakin supposed he could appreciate on a certain, non-cautious level.

Anakin nodded. "The Seppies came in through a different tunnel, but the way to the base is clear now," he replied. He wondered if going right would have brought them to that cavern beyond the slot sooner, but decided that dwelling on it would only frustrate him, and he was already too tired. And, again, that question - stop for the night, or press on. The noises he'd heard in the tunnel had unsettled him more than he'd realized, because he did inot/i want to stay here for the night. "Let's go."

With the widening he'd done of the tunnel, it only took a few moments for the squad to emerge on the other side, one of them whistling in appreciation of the eerie beauty of the cavern.

Down the feeder tunnel, reinforced with steel beams, signs of the Separatists became clearer. Anakin tried to comm Ahsoka, but there was no signal, and besides, she was too far away now to be much help - he was not interested in sticking around and waiting for her. Still, there was that silence, that all-encompassing deadness of the air, the disturbing lack of sound.

The base appeared before they expected it, illuminated in their headlamps and lightsaber glow. Taking up the majority of a cavern larger than the launch bay of the Resolute, the base was carved from the very rock, reinforced with struts and girders. Anakin stopped short, holding up a closed fist, reaching out with the Force. There was nothing - no life forms, and he still couldn't hear any evidence of 'droids. "Careful," he said softly. "We'll go in... carefully."

In twos, they approached the base, lights darting here and there. The massive metal-plated door had been torn out of its resting place, laying in pieces on the ground. Anakin swallowed a sudden rush of dread and cautiously picked his way over the threshold.

"They're all destroyed!" one of his troopers - Helm - exclaimed. And he was right; all around them was mechanical carnage, 'droid carapaces and heads and arms strewn around the room. Anakin was reminded, suddenly and unpleasantly, of Orto Plutonia and how the outposts there had been set upon by the Talz.

"Set your charges," he ordered, and stood back to let the Clones do their work while trying to make sense of the scene before him. He couldn't sense anything - or anyone - else down here, nothing that would explain how hundreds of battle 'droids had been torn to pieces. His stomach churned, his spine prickling. iI have a bad feeling about this/i. It was Obi-Wan's familiar refrain, but it rang true.

The Clones seemed to be experiencing the same uneasiness, because the charges were set in record time. Not wanting to risk getting lost, Anakin led them back the way they'd come. The cavern imploded behind them, dirt and debris coating their armor, Anakin's robes. He felt nominally better, now that they could start back to the surface. He'd never wanted to see the sun so badly in his entire life.

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The ground rumbled beneath her feet, and Ahsoka spat out a curse. "Master!" she growled. She knew - she wasn't sure how, but she knew - that he'd gone and destroyed the Seppie base without her. She wasn't sure why she was so surprised by that; her Master did what he wanted, when he wanted to. He'd wanted to destroy the base: he wouldn't have waited around for her to do so.

She rounded up the men - it was time to go back. Anakin hadn't specified what to do if he destroyed the base without her, but she assumed the hole he'd gone into would be how he'd return, and she wanted to be there when he did. She wanted hers to be the first face he saw when he emerged, so he knew exactly how she felt about what he'd done.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for all of your reviews! This part gets a bit more violent. **

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It was tempting to stop and rest. So long of marching in the dark, and Anakin was feeling incredibly tired, even with his reserves of Force energy. He knew the men would be feeling the same. But the base, with the destroyed 'droids and no clues as to how made him keep moving, made him press forward through the endless black nothingness. Once they were on the surface, they could rest. Not before, not until he knew they were safe from whatever invisible menace stalked the night down here.

That prickling returned, the sense of something not being quite right. He estimated they were halfway back to the hole by now, still too deep to send a signal to Ahsoka. He wasn't sure what he'd ask of her even if he could reach her anyway, so it was pointless to think about. He held up a hand for his troops to stop, reached out his senses. He tried not to swing his 'saber around for light, didn't want it to look like he was nervous, that he wasn't in control of the situation. He just stopped, and listened.

Rock scraping against rock. Anakin held his breath, closing his eyes to try and expand his Force senses outward. Then he felt it - something living, something elusively alive, many somethings, surrounding them. "Lights on full," he whispered, and the passage flooded with light. There was movement, too fast for him to track, but it was obvious - painfully obvious - that they were not alone.

There was movement again, and suddenly Helm's lights went out. "What was that?" Anakin bellowed, swinging his lightsaber around to compensate for the sudden change in light distribution.

"Some kind of oil," Helm replied, "all over my lenses. I'm sorry, Sir, I couldn't..." He sounded terrified.

"Nevermind," Anakin snapped. "Buddy up!" he ordered. "Let's move!" He kept his 'saber out in front of them as they continued down the passage. He could hear their pursuers following. Camo's lights were next, then Baller's. He could sense the men's growing distress in the Force; they were not bred to panic, but Anakin had to admit he was pretty close himself.

Baller screamed, suddenly. The sound was almost inhuman in its ferocity. The lights swung towards where he had been, and in his place was a streak of blood. "What the kriff?" Rex exclaimed. "What just happened?"

At Anakin's order, they ran. He brought up the rear, using the Force to create a whirwind behind them in the tunnel, to collapse portions of the path, to protect them as much as possible. Ahead, more screams. He reached out, could only sense six of his men. The whatever-it-was had gotten around him. He ran to the front of the pack, swinging his saber against the walls, hoping to make contact with something - anything. But nothing fell against his blade but rock.

Another scream, and suddenly pain sliced across his conciousness, worming up his leg, lancing across his side. He realized the scream had come from his own throat. He swung his 'saber as he fell and saw in its ethereal blue glow a creature screaming back, teeth bared, claws slick with blood. With his blood. "Open fire!" he cried out, throwing himself to the stone floor of the tunnel as his men laid waste on the invisible attackers. He could smell ozone and blood and frying meat as the blaster bolts hit home.

He wasn't sure if he lost consciousness, but when he came back to himself it was over, and he saw the twin beams of Rex's headlamps above him. "Sir, we need to move." The Clone Captain's armor was splashed with blood, and he was missing parts of his kit, torn off. Anakin saw bone peeking out of a gash in Rex's shoulder.

With difficulty, Anakin rose to his feet, nearly collapsing again as he tried to place his weight on his legs. He couldn't tell, exactly, what the damage was, but he didn't have time. He allowed Rex to help him, careful not to jostle too much, careful not to put pressure on either of their injuries. "Who made it?" he asked.

"Me, you, and Helm, Sir," Rex replied grimly as they began the arduous trek back towards the light. Helm moaned as they walked, and Anakin bit back his own moans in response.

This was supposed to have been easy.

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"Ahsoka." Ahsoka jerked out of the doze she'd fallen into. They'd gotten back to the hole hours before, and she had begun to worry - her Master and his team should have been back ages ago. She'd had to resist temptation to go down to find him; Sergeant Appo had even been ready to go on her order. But Anakin wouldn't have forgiven her if she'd disobeyed yet another order. Still, his voice was a comfort.

"Master!" she replied, activating her comm. "What's your status? What's going on?"

"We're gonna need your help extracting," Anakin replied. His voice was tight; the transmission was audio only, but he sounded like he was in pain. "There's..." A shout, the sounds of blasters firing, a lightsaber igniting.

She sprang to her feet, ran to her men. "Rig up harnesses," she ordered. "They're back, we need to extract them, there's..." She swallowed. "There's something down there."

The Clones worked as one unit, prepping the harnesses, determining rope length and anchor points. She tagged ten men, Appo in the lead, and descended, fear pounding in her throat. No, she was a Jedi, the apprentice of Anakin Skywalker. She did not feel fear. Even as they reached the bottom of the pit and she smelled the carnage, she pushed down her dread. "Close the passage!" she ordered, pointing to the passageway her Master and his troops - or what was left of them - were coming out of, backing into the chamber, attacking something Ahsoka couldn't see. The Clones fired over the heads of their comrades, rocks fell.

She ran to her Master's side. He was breathing hard, gasping for air, his lightsaber still out, and in its light she could see the pallor of his face, the blood and dirt staining him all over. "We have harnesses ready," she said.

He nodded at her, eyes glazed. "Rex and Helm first," he said. "And you." He looked lost. "You need to get out of here."

"There are enough harnesses for all of us," she replied softly, putting a hand on his arm and pulling away at the sensation of sticky, warm blood.

"Good," Anakin breathed, and collapsed.

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In her time as a Jedi Padawan, Ahsoka Tano had seen carnage. Had seen injury and death, and thought she knew how to handle it. But to see what had happened to her Master, and Rex, and Helm below-ground, she wanted to vomit and had to swallow down a sudden rush of bile.

Once back in the sunlight, the extent of the damage was clear, though what had caused it was certainly not. These were not blaster wounds or shrapnel injuries. The torn flesh and gaping holes in armor and tunics and skin looked more like an animal attack, though not any animal Ahsoka could think of. She called for a medevac to bring them back to the Resolute, thankfully still in orbit, and returned to her Master's side in the makeshift medical tent, lying alongside Rex and Helm. Coric had done his best for all three, administering painkillers and applying bacta, but simple bacta bandages would not be enough.

"What happened?" she asked, kneeling beside Anakin and taking his mechanical hand in her own.

Anakin's eyes slid open and he looked at her for a long moment with the barest hint of recognition. "My men," he murmured. "They're still down there."

She had a feeling he knew they were probably dead, so she didn't bother to point it out. Instead, she brushed his hair back from his forehead and sighed. "I know," she said.

"I need to go back for them," Anakin continued, propping himself up on his elbows and wincing. "I have to. Help me up."

She shook her head firmly. "No," she replied. "You're not going back down there. Nobody is." She'd ordered the hole sealed, anyway. She pushed him down again, careful to avoid the wound in his torso, still oozing blood from around the bacta patch.

"Snips." He leveled a piercing glare at her. "I have to help them."

"You have to rest," she countered. "The medevac's going to be here soon, and then we're going home." Usually, the mention of home made him relax, but this time, he merely sighed in resignation.

"I'm going back for them," he informed her, closing his eyes.

She chewed on her lip, sending soothing pulses through the Force until he fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Again, thank you everyone for your reviews! I promise, Obi-Wan will show up soon! :)**

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To many in the galaxy, bacta was a miracle in gel form. Derived from the much-sought bota plant, bacta was used for everything from healing minor scratches to restoring function to damaged organs. It was not infallible, though, and even with full bacta immersion, healing could still take time. Anakin, Rex, and Helm had been in the tanks for three days, their horrible animal wounds knitting together.

Ahsoka had never been in a bacta tank, so she had no idea if Anakin and the others were even conscious of what was going on. Coric had told her they were being fed a continuous stream of painkillers, so she supposed their awareness would be fuzzy at best.

She stood outside of her Master's tank and watched him, the gentle rising and falling of his chest, the fanned halo of hair floating around his face, the horrible gashes on his leg and side. More scars, to add to the collection.

There was movement under his eyelids, and every so often one of his limbs would move, slowed by the resistance of the bacta. "It's almost over, Master," she said softly, pressing her palm against the glass.

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Anakin was aware, dimly, that he'd been immersed in bacta. He hated the stuff; it tasted too sweet and sticky, and whenever he had to endure this particular treatment it took weeks for it to wash out of his hair entirely. Still, whatever drugs they were pumping into his system through the breathing mask over his nose and mouth was doing a decent job of keeping him from being too uncomfortable. At least, of course, when he was awake.

He lapsed from awake to sleeping so easily it was difficult to tell where one ended and the next began. Suddenly, he'd be back down in the caves, and the screaming of his men would deafen him. He didn't feel fear, not for himself, anyway, but the gut-twisting tension of the darkness revisted him again and again and again, keeping him restless in the tank, keeping him from relaxing. He never knew when the cave would reassert its presence, so he was always just barely calm.

With a jolt, the creatures were on him and he fought.

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He tasted sticky-sweet bacta, but the mask was gone and he was breathing cool, clean air. Opening his eyes, wincing at the sudden light, Anakin was relieved to find himself in Resolute's medbay. He was surprised to realize he wasn't annoyed at being laid up in recovery like he usually was. Instead, he was glad, glad he had some time to himself, some time to rest. He was so tired, so bone-achingly tired. The more he thought about it, groggily, sedated, he realized he'd been exhausted since before they'd gone down into the pit, before the thirty-hour ordeal that had lost him eight good men. He didn't let himself think about it often; if he thought about it, he tended to get stuck in a loop and couldn't move. But right now nobody was expecting him to move, so he could think, and replenish his reserves of energy. For the first time he could remember, he accepted his body's screaming need for rest.

With slightly-numb fingers, he lifted the hem of his sleep shirt, tracing the slick pink scar now adorning his right side. His leg, he knew, sported a matching mark; both places ached fiercely, but the pain was manageable. He'd never had a problem dealing with pain, even without the painkillers they were currently providing. He wasn't going to ask them to discontinue the drip, though - he needed rest and without the sedating effect of the drugs, he knew he'd just be up and about and unable to stop thinking about what had happened to his squad. It was the first time he'd ever just wanted to turn everything off, and while he was a little worried about what that meant, mostly he just wanted sleep without nightmares.

"Master?" It was Ahsoka, softly padding into the medbay, being careful not to wake Rex and Helm, laid up in beds further down in the bay. Anakin wanted to pretend to be asleep, but knew Ahsoka would see right through the ruse. Instead, he turned to her.

"Hey Snips," he said, and cleared his throat when the words came out surprisingly strained and hoarse. "Don't tell me you've been hanging around here this whole time." He wasn't sure how long he'd been in the bacta, or how long he'd been asleep afterward. Surely she had better things to do than watch her Master recouperate.

Then again, hadn't that always been what he'd done when Obi-Wan was hurt? Hadn't he spent sleepless weeks after Jabiim, worrying over his Master's injuries? Didn't he always exhaust himself trying to use his meager healing abilities whenever Obi-Wan got himself on the wrong side of a Seppie blaster? And after Lanteeb, hadn't he tried to siphon what tiny bit of energy he'd had into Obi-Wan?

"Not the whole time," she replied. Her tone was tart, but her eyes were soft, full of concern. He supposed he must have frightened her, though she should be used to him being hurt by now. It seemed to be happening with increasing frequency lately. He couldn't count the number of blaster wounds, burns from electrostaffs, minor head injuries and broken bones he'd endured as the war ramped up: Being on the front lines meant being in danger, and Anakin's tendency to take on the toughest assignments meant he was in the line of fire more often than not. Obi-Wan would probably blame Anakin's recklessness and overconfidence, but Anakin knew it wasn't iover/iconfidence. Besides, as long as he got the job done, he didn't care if he had a few bruises to show for it.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, sidling up to the bedside.

Anakin shrugged and fingered the IV line snaking into his flesh arm. "Peachy," he replied. "I'll be fine in a couple days." A couple of days would give him enough time to renew his energy, to catch up on his sleep. A couple of days would frustrate him with inaction enough that when he was loosed from this place he'd be willing to go back into the fight.

"What happened down there?" Ahsoka prompted, using the Force to pull a chair over. He was too tired to scold her for it - besides, doing so would make him a hypocrite anyway.

He shook his head, half-wishing the cocktail in his IV was stronger so he could just not think about what had happened, so he could claim he didn't remember. "I'm not sure," he replied carefully. And it was true, to an extent. He knew what he'd seen, what he'd heard, what he'd felt, but the confusion and violence of the attack made him almost doubt what his eyes had told him, especially the way the creatures had slipped in and out of his Force-sense. That never happened; he had a stronger grip of the Living Force than any Jedi in generations, he never had experienced a time when something living had been so ellusive.

Ahsoka looked thoughtful, worried. "Did they just... disappear?" She meant the Clones, those men who Anakin had failed to protect, who had trusted him to keep them safe.

Anakin frowned and looked down at his blanket. "Pretty much," he said softly. He wished he'd been able to go back for them, to find them, save them. He closed his eyes, hands curling into fists.

"I'm sorry," she said, laying a hand on his arm. He resisted the urge to jerk away - he didn't want her sympathy. It was his fault they'd died (though had they really died? They'd just vanished...), he didn't deserve any pity.

"Well," he managed, "it's over now." He cleared his throat, trying to inject some sort of Jedi wisdom into his voice. "There's no point dwelling on the past, Padawan," he informed her, "keep your mind on the here and now, where it belongs." Except he'd always been terrible at following that particular advice, and he had no intention of starting now. Still, he knew it was important to keep reminding Ahsoka of the Jedi way. He didn't want her to suffer because of his inability to control his emotions, after all. That was something private, something to be kept in his own mind, something to be pushed aside and ignored and buried under all of the other hurts.

"Yeah..." She didn't sound like she believed him. Sometimes he wondered if, perhaps, they were too much alike. "I'm glad you're okay," she said after a long moment.

Anakin just nodded, and closed his eyes again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you again for your reviews and comments! As promised, Obi-Wan makes his appearance...**

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Coruscant was the gleaming jewel of the Republic. The capital of the planet, it had been built up and up over the generations until entire areas of the planet never saw sunlight. Above the darkened lowers loomed the wide, squat Senate building, the ostentatious 500 Republica, and soaring above all of it, twinkling with austere beauty in the manufactured dawn (sunlight moved by massive mirrors in the planet's upper atmosphere) was the Jedi Temple, its four compass-point spires surrounding the ziggurat of the High Jedi Council.

It always felt, to Ahsoka, like coming home. Sliding past the space-scrapers into the snug docking bay of the Temple filled her with a kind of warmth she'd always associated with the place. The feeling of so many minds attuned to the Force all at once was comfortable, and comforting. She looked up at Anakin, standing beside her as the gangway lowered, and frowned slightly. He didn't seem happy to be here at all. While she knew Anakin did not welcome the comfort of the Temple the same way she did - did not feel it the same way she did, at least - she knew he still enjoyed being on Coruscant. There was no joy on his face this time, though. He looked somewhat distant, guarded. Not in pain, not anymore, but still... something wasn't there that usually was, and she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She hoped it was just anticipation of the Council debriefing, and that he would return to his normal self just as quickly. The thought calmed her, and she allowed it to be her truth for the time being.

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu were waiting for them when the ramp lowered. They walked down it, Ahsoka following her Master's slow steps, and bowed in deference to the older Masters. "I'm glad to see you're in one piece," Obi-Wan said.

"I am now, anyway," Anakin replied. He was playing his role, but Ahsoka could sense the strain. She'd become very skilled at picking out his moods, and this mood was decidedly unhappy. 'Be mindful,' she chided herself. 'Don't snoop.'

"Padawan Tano submitted the mission report," Master Windu said. "I'm sure you're aware the Council would like some further details." Ahsoka had tried to be as detailed as possible in her report; after all, Anakin had been out of commission for longer than the Council normally liked to wait. She couldn't for certain talk about what had gone on below-ground, but she did her best to report what she knew. Which, unfortunately, hadn't been very much.

"I have no doubt," Anakin responded blandly. "I can't promise I'll be able to give very good answers, though." He sounded distracted, on edge, but Ahsoka couldn't tell if Windu noticed. Obi-Wan had, she saw. He quirked an eyebrow and frowned slightly, a hand rising up to stroke his beard in that way he did when Anakin was doing something concerning (which, Ahsoka had learned, was often).

Obi-Wan didn't say anything, though, which Ahsoka knew didn't mean he wouldn't be saying something eventually. Obi-Wan was the only person Ahsoka knew who could get through to Anakin when he was in a mood, the only person who really seemed to know how to interact with him. Even with all the time she spent with her Master, Ahsoka still wasn't sure sometimes how to talk to him. Obi-Wan just iknew/i. Ahsoka supposed it was because Obi-Wan had known Anakin for almost a decade longer than she had, but she still could not help feel a bit of un-Jedi-like jealousy whenever she thought about how close the two men were, and how close she wished she could be.

She wasn't in love with her Master. Oh, no, nothing like that. But she did love him, more than she probably should. She would feel more guilty about that, her obvious attachment, if Anakin and Obi-Wan were not so obviously attached to each other. They tried to act like they weren't - well, Obi-Wan did. The older Jedi did his best to put on a mask of detachment, but Ahsoka could tell. She could tell by the way Obi-Wan used dry humor to make even the most dire situations seem manageable, could tell by the occasional shoulder clasps, the frequent smiles that Obi-Wan saved only for Anakin. The looks they exchanged when they thought no one else was looking. The way he looked right now: contemplative, worried. Not about the mission, but about Anakin.

Someday, she thought, she'd have that kind of trust and adoration between her and Anakin. Surely she would. He'd already begun treating her more like an equal than an apprentice, already trusted her to watch his back in a way he never had when they'd first met. Still, it wasn't the same. Still there was this gulf between them; Anakin would never truly open up to her, not like he did with Obi-Wan. Someday, she told herself.

She followed the Masters away from the docking ramp, up the sweeping stairs into the Temple. She wished they could have some time to rest before the Council debriefing, but knew they wouldn't as the four of them boarded the lift to the Temple's uppermost spire. The trip was made in silence, though Obi-Wan kept glancing over at Anakin. She knew once the two of them were alone there would be conversation, and she knew, too, that she likely wouldn't be a part of it. Would likely never truly know what they talked about when they were alone.

The doors to the main Council chambers slid open, and she found herself where she had been so many times before, standing in the middle of the circle of twelve, as Obi-Wan and Windu took their seats. She stepped up to Anakin's side, resisting the urge to squeeze his hand. No, that was a childish gesture, one reserved for when they were alone, when he needed reassurance and Obi-Wan wasn't around. Instead, she mirrored his pose, hands clasped behind her back, back ramrod straight.

"Read we did your Padawan's report," the ancient Master Yoda said. "Detailed it was, but detailed enough it was not. Your words, Young Skywalker, we would like to hear."

Anakin cleared his throat slightly, shifted his weight from one foot to another. He didn't seem nervous - he never did in front of the Council, even though every time Ahsoka was in this room it felt like her heart was going to beat right out of her chest. "When we completed our air recon of the hemisphere, there was a hole in the planet's surface that was not picked up by our scanners," Anakin explained. "When we landed and arrived at the hole, it became clear that the Separatist base was not where we thought it was, that it was underground instead." He paused for a moment. "I sent Ahsoka and the majority of the 501st around the hole to scout out further on in case the readings were incorrect and took Captain Rex and ten others down."

"So the evidence pointed to the base being below ground and you only saw fit to take a small company of Clones with you?" Windu asked, steely-eyed.

Anakin nodded. "Yes, Master," he replied. "I didn't have any readings on what was down there, and I felt that bringing a smaller group would mitigate the risks of an ambush." His voice tightened at that.

"But ambushed you were," Yoda pointed out, long ears twitching slightly.

"Yes," Anakin replied, swallowed, continued. "But not by Separatists. When we arrived at the base, the 'droids had all been destroyed, and the base itself showed evidence of an attack by an unknown force. I ordered a retreat, but before we could get back to the exit point, we also were attacked."

"Attacked by what?" Obi-Wan asked, leaning forward.

Anakin shook his head. "I... don't know," he admitted. "Biologics, whatever they were, and I couldn't get a good sense of them in the Force. They were fast, and I'm fairly sure they were sentient. They took out our lights first, then surrounded us and began picking out the men as we went. Captain Rex, Helm, and I were the only ones who made it out. The others just... disappeared." His voice had taken on a hard edge, the kind of edge he tended to get when he was feeling out of control. Ahsoka had been hearing it more and more in recent months, and she tried not to let it worry her.

"Reports from the medics who treated you and the surviving Clones suggested there was trauma consistent with an animal attack," Windu said, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers.

"Yes, Master," Anakin responded. "I can't explain it. They didn't feel like just mindless beasts. They knew what they were doing. I just... don't know why."

"We trespassed," Ahsoka said softly, surprising herself. When all eyes turned to look at her, she blinked and straightened. "We were trespassing in their home, like the 'droids were."

"It's happened before," Obi-Wan pointed out, "On Orto Plutonia."

Anakin shook his head savagely. "There wasn't anything in the briefing suggesting there was anything living underground."

Obi-Wan shrugged. "Nor was there any indication we would be dealing with the Talz," he replied. "And you said yourself, the hole did not appear on your scanners. It's entirely possible no one knew they were there."

For some reason, the idea made Ahsoka feel incredibly uneasy. She found herself slipping closer to Anakin, until his robe brushed against her arm. She hoped nobody noticed.

"Thank you both for your reports," Windu said. "Get some rest." Ahsoka knew a dismissal when she heard one, and Anakin seemed just as eager to leave as she was because no sooner had Windu finished speaking, he was bowing to the assembled Council and striding purposefully towards the door. She followed, having to jog slightly to keep up.


	5. Chapter 5

**_As always, thank you for all of the kind words! Sorry for the long delay - I hope the wait was worth it!_**

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Night on Coruscant was never truly dark. Lights from passing speeders, lights from homes of the hundreds upon millions of inhabitants of the city-planet, polluted the darkness so much that even in the middle of the night, it was almost like day. Normally, Anakin pulled his curtains shut tight; sleep was so illusive at times that he did any little thing he could (short of taking meds without them being forced into him by a Healer or, he thought ruefully, a high-handed Padawan) to capture it.

Right now, though, the last thing he wanted was darkness. Standing on the balcony outside of his small apartment, arms crossed over his chest, he stared out at the bustling city-scape. Normally when he was on Coruscant, he spent the time with Padme. Tonight, though, she was in meetings and he was too drained to wait for her. Tomorrow, he promised himself. He would go see her tomorrow, and would see her every day until he was called back to the war.

It was like this every time. Each time he was recalled back to the Capital, he spirited away, eager to spend time with the woman who meant more to him than life itself. Each time, he drew out their time together as much as he could, wishing that he would not have to inevitably leave her.

Still, there was something inside of him that craved being out in the field. Too long in on place and he began to get antsy, began to feel uncomfortable in his own skin. Too long without action, and he always found himself getting into trouble of one kind or another. Sometimes Padme's presence helped, but even when they were together he sometimes felt like he was a thousand light-years away. He wasn't sure how to fix that. He didn't want to be at war, but the thought of being sedentary in the Temple was even worse.

He'd often entertained thoughts of what would happen when the war was over. When the war was over, he and Padme could reveal their relationship, and he could take what punishment came without fear that doing so would mean doom for the Republic. He might have to leave the Order, and as often as he fantasized about such a future, it also filled him with a kind of unnameable dread. Being a Jedi was all he'd ever wanted, but he was sure that being married to Padme, openly and without fear of reprisal, was something he wanted just as badly. He knew he could not have both, and that bothered him.

It bothered him, too, that he was still thinking about what had happened to his men. It didn't bother him that he felt compassion for them, but it bothered him that he didn't know for certain what happened. It bothered him that he was still shying away from the dark, that his finely-honed reflexes would not allow him to calm down. It bothered him that he had no idea what had happened in the dark recesses of the planet, and had no idea if his men were dead or alive.

He assumed dead, but he wasn't sure. They'd been taken alive, he knew that much. Even through the haze of pain and the confusion of the escape, he'd been able to sense them in the Force, still alive, even as he'd been hoisted out of the pit. Whether they remained so was a different question, and one he couldn't seem to put out of his mind.

Letting out a long breath, Anakin turned on his heel and stalked back into his apartment. It seemed so empty, so lacking any personal touches. It was the apartment he'd been assigned once he was Knighted, until that time he'd lived with Obi-Wan, and almost all of his things were still there. A Jedi did not have possessions, but they did tend to accumulate things over the course of their lives. Anakin, too, atypical of the Jedi ideal, had never quite been able to cast of the desire to own. Model starships, datapads, pieces of machinery, all found their way into his room at one point or another. He had never been on Coruscant, and not at Padme's, for long enough to move it all into his own living quarters.

He knew Obi-Wan didn't mind. Oh, the older man pretended that he minded, complained about tripping over this or that piece of detrius that he claimed Anakin should have gotten rid of ages ago, but it was always with that twinkle in his eye, that glimmering mirth that Obi-Wan hid from almost everyone. Everyone except Anakin, anyway.

He glanced at the chrono on the wall, trying to decide if it was too late to seek out his former Master, to try and have him help make some sense of the jumbled feelings floating through Anakin's mind. No, it was too late. Obi-Wan had experienced a lifetime of Anakin waking him up in the dead of night because of this premonition or that nightmare. No, he could handle this himself.

He found himself wandering the Temple, quiet at this time of night, winding up in the vaulted Archives. While never a very good student, Anakin did value knowledge, and he hoped to find something that might give him some insight as to what had happened. If anywhere in the galaxy had information about the below ground creatures, the Jedi Archives would. After all, didn't Jocasta Nu always say, "If something does not appear in our records, it does not exist"? Kamino had proven her wrong in that respect, but only because she was right and the Jedi had become complacent.

Pulling a face at the path his thoughts were taking, Anakin seated himself in front of one of the data terminals lining the hall. There was nobody else in the Archives that he could see, though he was sure if he went looking he could find Master Sinube dozing over some ancient text or other. Still, he preferred the solitude.

He started by pulling up the database entry on the planet, looking over topographical maps, lists of native flora and fauna, and found nothing. He continued deeper, pulling up charts of seismic activity, realizing as he read that the planet seemed to be somewhat seismically unstable, experiencing massive, planet-wide earthquakes every few dozen years. Furrowing his brow, Anakin realized that this was evidence that the tunnels he'd found were not simply isolated to the area he'd seen, that they perhaps encompassed the entire planet.

He knew planets like that existed, hollow planets, planets with oceans at their cores. Planets like Utapau, where he'd never been, but had to read about as a Padawan. It wasn't so out of the ordinary, really. But, unlike Utapau, where the residents clearly and obviously lived within the massive sinkholes that dotted the planet's surface, this planet did not seem to have any official record of anything living below the surface, nor did it have anything explicitly stating there were tunnels throughout the whole of the interior of the planet.

He decided to set aside the "official" record. Traveling the universe with Obi-Wan Kenobi, he'd picked up a few things. Specifically, if you wanted to learn about the planet, read its folklore. So that is what he found himself doing, after a few fits and starts to find exactly what he was looking for.

They were called _dran'golium _inthe native tongue, _monster_ in Galactic Basic. Snatching children from their beds, leaving their own children in return, creeping up from the depths to sow havoc. There were no official reports, no holographs, just legend upon legend from ages ago. When he realized there was nothing more recent than the Russan Reformation, he tried again. Folklore and stories continued to be told in more modern times, of course, but now there was no mention of the dran'golium. Now they spoke of a plague.

Anakin was so wrapped up in the stories that he didn't sense Obi-Wan's presence behind him until the older man had laid a hand on his shoulder. Buried in a plague-text that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, Anakin jumped, flushing deep embarrassment when Obi-Wan laughed at him - outright laughed at him!

Soon enough, his former Master sobered. "I was surprised to find you here," he admitted ruefully. "Force knows I always assumed I'd have to drag you in here kicking and screaming." He pulled up a chair beside Anakin and peered at the terminal. "Sometimes," he said, "there are no answers."

Anakin shook his head vehemently. There were answers, he knew there were, there had to be, because he wanted there to be. "Before the texts change, they talk about the creatures bringing men down to serve as chattel. As... slaves." He spit the word out, always so ugly in his mouth. "My men are still alive, Obi-Wan." He was sure of it, like he'd been sure he'd become a Jedi, like he'd been sure he'd marry Padme, like he was sure he would bring the Republic to victory. His instincts were never, ever wrong.

"You can't be sure," Obi-Wan, always pragmatic, replied. "And besides, what can you do if they are?" It sounded like he already knew the answer.

Anakin bowed his head, a plan forming even as he spoke. "I go back there," he said, voice barely a growled whisper, "I go back there, and I save them."

Obi-Wan sighed. "Oh, Anakin." He put a hand on Anakin's knee, laid the other against Anakin's cheek. "When will you learn?"

"That I can't save everyone?" Anakin finished for him, sharply, frowning. "I led them down there, Master." The old honorific, retired except in times like these, times when he still felt like a little boy, despite how sure he was of his path. "If they're still alive, I owe it to them..."

Obi-Wan withdrew his gentle touch, hand moving to his beard. "And you would go alone?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Anakin swallowed. "If I had to."

Looking down at the floor, Obi-Wan seemed to make a decision. "Would you object to some company?" he asked, sounding surprised with himself.

Anakin's jaw dropped. "Master, you can't be serious." He hadn't even really thought it through, was acting, as he always did, on pure emotion.

"Anakin, whatever happened to your men is in danger of happening to the other inhabitants of that planet," Obi-Wan pointed out. "Perhaps it is up to the Jedi to make sure that does not happen."

"And the Council?" Anakin asked, still a little shocked at Obi-Wan's offer, at his willingness to follow Anakin on some crazy idealistic crusade.

Obi-Wan shrugged slightly. "Mace and Yoda happen to agree with me."

Anakin felt like he was going to leap out of his chair. "How'd you pull that off?" he asked, resisting the urge to kiss Obi-Wan, so glad he was that he was being given this chance. So often the Council chastised him for acting without thinking, for putting people before ideals, for disregarding the Code when his heart told him something different.

"I have my secrets," Obi-Wan replied, standing and holding out a hand to Anakin. "Come now," he said, "we have a mission to plan."


End file.
